


I Like You A Lot

by Like_a_Hurricane



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, De-Aged Steve Rogers (mentioned), De-Aged Tony Stark, M/M, Tony's science exploded again, it got complicated, this time with flowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-28 08:37:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2725826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Like_a_Hurricane/pseuds/Like_a_Hurricane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a mishap with Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, an ancient fae artifact formerly sealed away in a long-lost S.H.I.E.L.D. silo, and some botanical samples from Asgard and Alfheim that Dr. Banner had left in the shared research lab of Avengers tower. As a result, Tony and Steve were both magically de-aged to about age seven, with their memories accordingly missing. Havoc ensued, but just as the Avengers work out how to reverse the spell’s effects, both Steve and Tony went missing themselves, aided by the magics of the artifact which had the world’s most maddeningly vague and unhelpful inscriptions upon it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Like You A Lot

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this post](http://defenestration-and-more.tumblr.com/post/104229207076/so-i-read-a-thing-earlier-on-tumblr-and-it-was) on Tumblr: "So...I read a thing earlier on tumblr, and it was about Tony and Steve getting hit with an aging magic and shrinking back to about 6 years old? I don’t know if you're taking prompts, but I discovered that I really need Loki finding Tony as a child and taking care of him (because he's got his own children) to the surprise of the avengers? *melts into the floor* I know it's not your usual FrostIron, but still. It was a thought."
> 
> I did not originally intend to write more than a one-scene vignette for this, but it sort of kept growing, and I kept being inclined to let it, and this happened.

In truth, the trickster god did have valid reasons to be casually loitering at the edge of Central Park, before the Rhino robbed the nearest bank, and the resulting media corps and police presence both deterred his target from emerging from hiding to meet him. It was tricky, dealing with heroes, even when Loki happened to be the one repaying a debt this time.

The spider-themed hero amused him, though. His tricks and his verbal barbs made him uniquely enjoyable to fight alongside, the both of them battling a badly-hexed Skurge in lower Manhattan, all whilst Amora tried to lift the spell that had sent him into berzerker-like raging. The hexing had been courtesy of Karnilla, but that was another story altogether.

For now, Loki was glaring down at the profusely apologetic text messages on his phone. Loki responded politely, stating he would just have to drop in whenever he next deemed to be convenient. He added as well that he would be certain they were alone, as a professional courtesy.

Peter was alarmed by most of that, and tried to protest.

The trickster enjoyed it, reminded the boy he had no choice in the matter as gently as he could, then bid Spider-man goodnight and put his phone away.

A small boy leapt out of the nearest copse of trees, running hell-for-leather across the open space before landing with a muffled sound under some bushes behind Loki’s bench. The god caught sight of wicked dark eyes, brown-black hair, an a childishly reckless, thrilled smile. He was also, very clearly to the eye of the likes of Loki, under some sort of spell. Something about youth, just at a glance. The boy appeared very young indeed, but also a bit wildly unruly in a manner suggesting that he was coordinated enough to run very far and fast indeed, when he wished to.

 _Mischief_.

“Who are you fleeing from, boy?”

The child gave an alarmed squawk, apparently not aware that he had any audience, so caught up was he in the drama of his escape. He stood up sharply. His nose barely cleared the leafy canopy of the shrub around him. “No one!”

“That is a lie. Are they your family, your friends, the police or other authority figure, or have you collected some genuine enemies?” Loki asked, amused.

The boy glanced furtively over his shoulder at first. Then, dissatisfied he twisted around to look straight behind him, and pulled apart a few branches to peer through them briefly, turning his back to the god of lies for a moment before answering. “Friends. They wanted me to stay somewhere really boring.” He looked at Loki with more interest suddenly, and a mixture of wariness and curiosity like he was puzzled a bit by the stranger somehow. “Who are you?”

“Nobody,” said the trickster. “I’m a story.”

The boy frowned. “People aren’t stories.”

“People aren’t story-shaped, true, nor are their lives, but people are made of stories,” Loki assured. “Trust me.”

“You’re a stranger, ‘course I don’t,” the boy snorted, dismissive.

“That’s a wise idea, as well.”

“Your eyes are really super-green. Like really green. Are you human?”

“What else might I be?”

The boy shrugged. “Super-something? A mutant? Somebody like the hammer god guy.” He gestured vaguely. “He’s not human cos he flies all the time. Also the electricity stuff.” He gestured again, more theatrically, with the clumsiness of youth, vocalizing an absurd noise meant to indicate whooshing of lightning from a hammer, though it came across more like a cherubic Bruce Lee impression. “I saw him do it.”

Loki’s smile thinned. All too familiar. “Yes, he’s called Thor.”

“You know him?”

“Many people do. He’s famous here, is he not?”

The boy nodded, frowning a little. “That’s um… not…” He hesitated. “But have you met him though, I mean? You talk a little like him. I mean uh… ‘Is he not?’ sounds like his words more than mine or most peopleses that I know.” He looked a bit shy and uncertain.

Loki chuckled. “I’m very unusual, yes.”

“Yeah, totally.”

“What is your name, boy?”

“You first,” he challenged, his grin suddenly a bit hesitantly cheeky.

The trickster realized he was still staring down his nose at the boy, looking at him just over his shoulder, rather imperiously. Clearly, that would not do. Instead, he turned on the bench, resting one arm on the back of it and his legs––slightly bent up and leaned against the bench-back––out across the rest of the seat, so he faced the boy more. He thus lounged casually, with shoulders relaxed loosely, even while putting more of the bench between himself and the boy, to deter passerby from assuming predatory intent. He looked confident, yet harmless, such that even occasional passing jogger or dog-walker would spare him not a second glance. “You may call me Lokk.”

“Is that short for something?”

Loki nodded. “You’re a stranger too, you see.”

He frowned. “But you’re not scared of me.”

“Well, while you _are_ perfectly human, unarmed, small, weak, and relatively harmless compared to myself; there are many people nearby, and you are capable of being very loud, I suspect, when threatened. I could not harm you here without bringing attention to myself. I also should not be too cordial or welcoming, lest I be accused of still direr evil intentions than that.”

The child struggled a bit with keeping up with his words, but did seem to understand, and he relaxed a little. “Well. Unless you’re not human and can get away real fast. You didn’t answer that question either.” He frowned a little. “You tricked me.”

Loki shrugged. “Only a little, and harmlessly so.”

“So you’re not human, or you’d have just said, probably.”

The god inclined his head. “Very good, boy; although that will not always be the case. That is the more obvious option, but there are trickier ones out there.”

For a moment, the child looked away. He was trying very hard to come up with something, to go by his eye movements and the way his expression crinkled a bit. Then, “Eddy,” the boy blurted suddenly. “I’m, um, Eddy. Short for Edwin.”

The god’s eyebrows raised and his lips quirked in delighted amusement. “You could make that lie far better, you know.”

The so-called Edwin looked sheepish. “How?”

“It takes a bit of practice. You have to hear your own voice at the same time that you speak with it, and you have to know what lies sound like when you or other people say them, when the lies are weak. You nearly caught me, when I dodged your attempt to ask if I knew Thor personally.”

The boy thought about it, pouting a little. “I’m usually good at this, I think.” His pout became a frown. “I don’t remember some things. I’m, um, under a spell.”

“I know.”

The boy blinked. “What?”

“Why else wouldn’t I tell you my true name, little human boy? And how old were you, when that spell was inflicted?”

“Like really old,” the boy stage-whispered. “Older than dad.” His expression wavered then. “Wait if I-”

Seeing where that was going, Loki swiftly derailed him, “Lies, boy. Do pay attention.”

Not-Edwin stood up a bit straighter, then seemed to remember he was still in the bushes, and slowly emerged from them a couple of steps. He wore a slightly-too-big t-shirt, and jeans that looked like they had just been hastily purchased: one leg still bore a bit of plastic from where a tag had been plucked off incompletely.

Loki banished it in casual annoyance with a small gesture the boy didn’t notice.

Standing now within arm’s reach of the god of chaos, the boy stared up at him with big, dark brown eyes very wide. “You do magic?”

The god nodded.

“Did you do this?” He pointed at himself.

Loki shook his head and shrugged emphatically.

The boy blinked at him. “Are you lying?”

“Why would you suspect that?”

“I… don’t know?”

Loki winked at him. “I can tell you, if you like.”

He started to nod agreement before the god even finished the sentence.

“I exaggerated my movements a little, like this-” He repeated the gesture to illustrate, then did it again with less exaggeration. “-instead of more casually like this. I also dragged out that shrug a bit too long, and glanced to the side for a moment as I did so.” Again, he repeated the actions for the boy as he named them and explained their function; he had always been an adept teacher, when he wished to be. “That created the illusion of a falsehood, for you.”

The boy appeared fascinated. “So I need to not do those.”

“Also try not to hesitate or drag out any of your words like you’re only just pulling them out of the air, nor should you blurt them out too loudly and instantly, like you memorized it for a test. You want to give the impression that you knew the answer already, and have for a long time.”

“What if I don’t have an answer?”

“If you need time to think of one, look up rather than to the side to appear more as though you are searching your memory. For more effect, you can also crinkle your expression a bit to make it look like you’re struggling to remember, and make a thoughtful sound, to stretch out your time a little more, but for a question like ‘what is your name’ the answer should be very simple, so you should come up with your lie and believe in it enough to sound sincere, before you even open your mouth to let it slip free.”

The boy nodded, clearly a bit baffled by a grown-up being so matter-of-fact with him about fooling other grown-ups. “So, if you didn’t do this spell, could, um, could you undo it?”

“Well, now, that would be a different matter. How would doing that benefit me?”

“I’ll be your best friend?”

“Can you promise that, boy who does not remember how old he was?”

“Why wouldn’t I want to be friends with you? You’re so _cool_.” He leaned forward a little as he said it, eyes widening with sincerity.

Loki couldn’t help but preen, just a little, and find it sort of adorable. As a child himself, he had been more usually targeted for his unusual traits and mocked for them, but as he grew older, children more like he had wished to be allowed to be, at their age––the quieter and more inquisitive ones, as his own daughter had been; Loki himself had instead been dragged more often in Thor’s wake and forced to adapt to the ensuing madness to save both of their skins, over the centuries, and it made him rather less quiet and more tempestuous in his demeanor than he had ever truly wanted to be––tended to like him. It savored of some small morsel of vindication, that children who did tend to see clearly and with strange wisdom as only children and the very elderly ever seem to do, could be innocently intrigued by his differences, those clues that to adults were subtle but to certain children spoke very loudly (namely, those things that separated him from most other Aesir in his temperament and attitude) and they were often very amusing to educate about such things, if or when they had daring enough to approach him, and begin to ask questions.

However, he also did not want these children believing for an instant that they would be wise to trust the likes of him. The likes of clever strangers. He did so as gently as possible, but did generally remind them, nevertheless.

“I am not actually a very kind or good person,” Loki assured the boy.

The boy blinked at him. “But you’re nice to me now.”

“I am _polite_ , for now. ‘Nice’ is not applicable to me. There is a difference between those two things, and many people will try to lead you to believe otherwise, but those who do should not be trusted, child. For now, you have not hurt me or annoyed me at all, and you are amusing to talk with, and so you are safe.”

“But you taught stuff to me. That was nice.”

Loki chuckled. “I taught it to you to please myself.”

“Why?”

“Because you are a surprisingly bright child, and you remind me of my daughter.”

“You’re a _dad?_ ” the boy sounded almost scandalized.

“Yes. And I taught my daughter the same lessons I have just taught you.”

For a moment, the boy’s entire expression was drawn into anger and jealously and he turned his head away for a moment. “Good for her, then.”

Loki knew that particularly envious shade of green all too well. Against his will, he was moved by it. That was not a look Hel had ever worn nearly so often as her father had, long before she was born. The god of lies had worked hard to make sure she had no such reasons to be so bitter toward their relationship. “I did it because my own father was rather less kind, actually. Far less helpful. Sharper and sterner.”

The boy glanced at him hesitantly again, then, almost fearfully. “I didn’t say anything about that,” he said quietly, in a tone of what was definitely fear.

Loki was not prepared to see and hear that, and know that he had worn that exact same expression that now crossed this child’s face, and had felt and heard that same tremor in his own voice. He swallowed tightly. “Neither did I, for a very long time.”

“Sh-should I wait too?”

The trickster shook his head. “Not if you are harmed. You should seek help from someone else close to you. Someone you can trust.”

He ducked his head a little.

Loki reminded him very gently, “Who is Edwin?”

“M-my friend. Dad’s butler, but he’s more mine, but he’s like-”

“I understand,” Loki said softly. “My mother occupied the same role, for me. She was my father’s queen, but _my_ mother.” He smiled a little, with tragic sadness for a moment as he missed her deeply, but he let it go to smile with confident sincerity at the child instead of dwelling on it. “I am glad someone is there for you to trust, and feel protected by, even from strangers like me, and even with only a name.”

The boy smiled a little at that. “Y-yeah. I guess I do.”

“I would strongly recommend that you trust more in _his_ belief in your goodness than your father’s, for I think Edwin sees your world more like _you_ do by understanding you, such that he can help you to make your voice better heard by others, in his voice, while you are still so young. Your father might be inclined to make you live in someone else’s world, probably his own, but you _do_ have a choice, and you deserve to make it as best suits _you_. Whether that means that you follow the path that he wishes you to, or that you instead blaze your own, and leave him in the dust, should be up to you.”

“But my dad is _my dad_ , though,” he said, his voice slightly hollow.

“Just as there is a difference between being polite, and being kind, there is a difference between respecting someone, and actually obeying them. You can show respect without being obedient, but it takes more time for others to accept, especially fathers, unless you do it only without getting caught, which requires a lot of effort and lies to maintain. In the end, this may require fighting against him to achieve, but if he cannot accept you as you are, he does not deserve all the respect that is owed a _good_ father. Teach him that, and you will win his heart as well as his mind, and peace for both of you. To do otherwise will only harm both of you.”

“D-did you get uhm…”

“Harmed. Yes. Very deeply.”

“You don’t look-”

“Child,” Loki interrupted, firmly. “Looks mean nothing, in relation to injury. Some of the strongest people in this universe are in great pain, all the time, that others cannot see. Do not insult my own strength, by suggesting I look too whole to have ever been broken.”

“S-s-sorry.” He looked up through the fringe of his hair, then down at the ground.

Loki reached out at tipped his chin up until their eyes again met, and then settled his hand on the back of the bench again. “No shame is necessary. You are a child. _You_ are _still learning_ these things. None of them are easy to find written in books, particularly when you do not even know what questions need asking, yet, in this life. You must observe carefully, and be aware of the power of what your words are suggesting by what they mean _in and of themselves_ , and not always just by what others tell you they _meant_ for them to mean. Alright?”

“Please be my friend?”

The trickster smiled more sincerely, then, his eyes lit with warmth as well as mischief. “I cannot make such a promise to a stranger, and nor can you.”

He sighed. “You’re _not_ that strange,” he protested, with open petulance.

“I most certainly am.” He lifted his head a bit, at sounds from the trees the boy had emerged through. He could faintly hear a couple of voices calling. He felt… a bit protective, suddenly. “Who were you running from, again?”

“Friends. Um. But I don’t know them. And they can’t tell me where Jarvis is-”

“What?”

“But I thought I heard him––huh?”

“Jarvis?”

“Do you know him? E-edwin Jarvis?” His eyes lit up. “Where is he?”

Loki shook his head. “No, my apologies.” He looked at the boy’s face with new shrewdness, even as he said, “I merely know… another person of that name.”

The boy frowned. “Is this another lie test?”

“No… I’m actually uncertain about the truth now, not concealing it. You have very familiar eyes.”

“You too, but it’s like, I can’t figure out how, because I can’t remember meeting you or anybody with eyes like yours, but they’re super pretty.”

“Yours are very dark, and expressive.”

“They’re like my dad’s,” he said quietly. “They make me look like a Stark. Lotsa people say.”

Loki managed to appear unaffected, but he felt a bit adrift, suddenly. “Stark?”

“Yeah I––oops. Tasha said I shouldn’t tell anybody that.”

“Good advice,” the trickster concurred, his voice a bit distant as he continued to stare at the boy, who was starting to hear people calling for him now, too.

“You know me?” he asked.

Loki nodded.

“A-are we friends?” There was a fragile hope in his voice.

The trickster hesitated, mostly thrown for a loop by the sudden acute longing in his chest blindsiding him. It was unexpected, yet not altogether surprising, even as it made him feel a sudden, deep sense of foreboding. No one had ever snuck up under his guard in such a unique manner as this, and it stung. It burned with something like embarrassment and strange elation both at once, and the god was uncertain how to feel about it.

He’d felt camaraderie with, and desire to touch, the fully-grown Tony Stark on many occasions they had crossed paths, in the past. Even a couple of alliances with the Avengers over the past year. He had been toning down villainy, since handing Odin back his throne in as condescending of a manner as he could concoct. He was a free agent, these days, and no longer did Asgard try very hard to capture him.

He had considered propositioning this man far too often to be able to answer such a question as “Are we friends?” as instantly as he should have been able, when it was being asked of him by a child he had only just realized was a version of that same man currently no older than eight, and no younger than six, years of age by Earthly reckoning. A child he had been rather sincere and paternal towards. Thus, he hesitated a bit too long in answering.

Tony looked sad. “So no?”

“You have never trusted me, nor I you, to my knowledge, no.”

“Why?”

“Well, for a start, I might have thrown you out of a window the first time we met.”

“What’d I _do_?” the boy sounded alarmed and offended.

“You survived. You and your… friends, the Avengers, halted the alien invasion I had brought to this city, just as I’d planned.”

Tony looked utterly lost, then. “W-what?”

“It is a very long story.”

“Well, yeah, cos it’s _yours_.”

Loki laughed a bit despite himself, but he sobered a bit quickly, even though it made the boy frown at him in concern.

“You look sad, now. You didn’t, before. Do you… want to be my friend too?”

“I do not know what I want from you, anymore than you know what you will want from me once your spell is broken.”

Suddenly, Tony looked outright distraught. “Will I forget this too?”

Loki touched his shoulder briefly, his eyes glowing only a little.

“Woah!”

Smirking slightly, Loki shook his head, the glow faded, but he left his hand in place. “You will forget much. The spell has no structures which will anchor these memories in any clear, linear way. It might be like a dream, and prone to fading.”

The voices of searchers were getting closer now. They were at the tree line: Natasha Romanoff and Steve Rogers, both following the trail of a de-aged Tony Stark like seasoned trackers after a prize stag.

“Can you fix it?”

The god blinked, distracted. “Excuse me?”

“Can you make them stick?”

“Why?”

“You taught me things. I don’t want them lost!” He sounded insistent, like this was the most obvious and important thing. Then he reminded him a bit more quietly and carefully, “‘Cause my dad won’t teach me.”

Loki considered. “You still didn’t need me to teach you these lessons. I think you already know most of the… the art of lies. You’ve mastered it quite well, for a mortal, as a matter of fact.”

“Hurry, they’re almost here!” Tony hissed, starting to hunch down a bit more so the bushes were still obscuring him from sight.

Before he could think about it further, the god reached out and touched the young boy’s brow with the fingertips of one hand, and with a murmur and a rush of energy and air about them, applied the necessary anchorages into the spell, for preservation of memory. It really was clumsy spell-work. “Whoever enchanted you is a rank amateur.”

“Obie calls people that lots,” Tony said.

Having read all of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s files on Tony Stark over the years, Loki recoiled a bit more quickly than he intended at that particular statement. “I’ll endeavor to avoid it in future.”

“Why?”

“Maybe you’ll figure it out soon enough, and perhaps I won’t live to regret it, Tony dear,” the trickster responded.

“You _do_ know me.”

“Yes, I do. And so do they.” Loki glanced over the bush. “You should go to them.”

“But-”

“Go to them,” the god repeated, a bit more gently. “It’s time, child.”

Tony frowned at him, stomped around the bench and forcefully hugged him.

“Stark, _what_ are you doing?” Loki asked a bit more sharply.

“I like you a lot,” he said, his voice thick.

 _Uh-oh_. As a parent, Loki knew that tone of voice meant. If he chose to be sharp with the boy, Tony would immediately burst into tears, but being gentle would require more time and attention, which would reward this behavior. After a moment’s consideration, he sighed, and rested his free arm loosely about the boy’s shoulders. He lifted his other hand off the back of the bench, and wove a spell with gestures and breath, causing the bushes to suddenly vanish and reappear ten feet to the left of their original position, exposing the god and Tony both to the Avengers behind it, who noticed both the magic, and Tony, and that Tony wasn’t alone.

Tony himself squeezed Loki tighter when he heard them calling, and Loki let him, right up until the Avengers abruptly halted in their running forward as it fully sunk in just who had Tony Stark clinging to his side.

“Loki, let him go!” Steve commanded. “We don’t need to be your enemy.”

“We haven’t been, lately. Stark eventually had to hack S.H.I.E.L.D. to notice your energy signature less reliably, just so they’d stop alerting him anytime you went out for coffee around here. He still won’t stop bragging about how he framed Doom for it, either,” Natasha added, a bit more practically. “Is he crying?”

“Slightly,” Loki said, his tone neither offended nor amused, which seemed to unsettle both Avengers more than anything else. Steve’s posture alone went from brawl-ready to complete bafflement within the space of a blink. He remained baffled as the god of lies continued, “We’ve been conversing, but I was not aware of who exactly was under this age-reversal spell until just the past few minutes.” He looked down at the boy again. “If I were human, boy, the way your nails are pinching would be very uncomfortable.”

Tony squeaked and loosened his grip, not hearing the lie.

With perfect timing, Loki utilized that misdirection to pluck Tony loose from him with a single sharp tug and immediately leaned down to look him in the eye from arm’s length, holding him at bay gently that way, while also helping him maintain his balance and uprightness. “Tony, I understand that you’re upset, but you need to return to the Avengers now.” He was vaguely aware of the steadily-increasing confusion and mild horror the super-soldier and super-spy were regarding this exchange with, and wished he could take more pleasure in it. As it was, his expression remained open and calm, his eyes wide and convincing, and his tone stayed soft in volume, but firm in conviction.

Tony sniffled.

Reflexes as old as Hel herself bid him gently kiss the boy’s forehead, before he could even pause for thought. “Be well,” he said, and straightened his own posture while gently pivoting Tony to face the Avengers. He managed not to sight with acute relief when the child stepped away from him without any further direction or pushing, but rather of his own volition.

“G’bye,” the boy whined, sounding suddenly very tired as he strolled back toward Natasha as though weighed down with immense and tragic sadness, with the un-self-aware melodrama enabled by childish petulance.

The spy stepped forward to meet him halfway, but her eyes were on Loki. She raised an inquiring eyebrow.

“I have two children,” he reminded her, annoyed.

She nodded. “You’re good with kids, yes. It’s in your file, along with other levels of threat to different demographics of the general public we took into consideration, when reviewing that bit about S.H.I.E.L.D. tracking you. You’re welcome.” She smiled a bit more openly at his stunned look. Then she looked more surprised and bemused again, glancing from Tony to the god of lies. “Just uh…” She looked down, watching the child rub at his own face with small, weak fists, like he was losing strength as his emotional fit reached its inevitable crash into exhaustion.

Natasha cleared her throat quietly. “Well, you know who he _is_ now.”

Loki shrugged. “He’s still a child.”

Seeing Tony sniffling again, the spy knelt down and picked him up in her arms, letting him curl up there and hide his face against her shoulder. “Thank you. There are too many people in the world who don’t understand how to respect that.”

He nodded. “Not only this world, yes, I’m sad to report.”

“I’m glad you don’t tolerate it within earshot.” She smiled soberly at how he inclined his head almost-regally in appreciation of the comment; it was a cultural tic he shared with his brother. “See you around, then. I don’t think we need to harass you much further than one of us already has,” she said, winking at his expression of mild surprise and dawning amusement as Steve tried to protest and she silenced him with a glare, which was somehow only made more effectively intimidating, by the way that her posture had shifted to accommodate carrying a small child.

Turning on her heel, then, she left, seeming to drag an appropriately chagrinned Steve in her wake, quietly batting aside his mutterings about Loki as they headed back into the trees. 

Natasha couldn’t say exactly why she found it quite so easy to let their old foe off a number of hooks they might have well-deservedly hooked him upon and incarcerated him for, yet again. Perhaps it was because she still clearly remembered, from recent perusals of the information S.H.I.E.L.D. continued to collect on him over the years, that this oddly beneficient-seeming behavior from Loki wasn’t actually out of character for him, nor was it anything she actually wanted to dissuade him from continuing, on occasion, to do.

In past, Loki had a history of leaving behind him, in his visits on Earth, occasional minor mischiefs, clever and educational, innocently handed to children who approached him in public places. They all happened within full sight of the general public, and local security camera feeds, and overall seemed to be strangely harmless, or even strangely benevolent, in their effects. Thor said it was common tradition throughout the other realms, for people to give gifts to the children of strangers in communities they passed through, outside their own homes: small things, mementos of a meeting with someone from another land. It was a tradition going back to the beginnings of Yggdrasil, of sharing harmony and cultural openness between all the nine realms. Thor also frequently did this himself in his own more genteel-yet-raucous fashion, talking to children who approached him in public with enthusiastic, yet gentle approval of their mirth and their interest. He would speak with them, and give them a tale, or some small token, to remember meeting him by.

The same calm, gently restrained confidence, and slight suspension of disbelief for the sake of giving power to the stories of children by his sincerely believing in them when they spoke to him, that Thor had when meeting members of the general public and trying to treat them gently out of respect, had seemed a jarring juxtaposition when worn by the god of lies, but not actually insincere.

Natasha also knew that Loki didn’t do this thing out of charity or good-will, Natasha knew. He did it nostalgically, and to amuse himself, but with enough respect for this particular tradition amongst all the realms that he did not feel any need to corrupt it into his more usual brand of chaos. Nothing more, and nothing less.

And she told Steve as much, as they walked the far-too-long trek back towards the agreed-upon pick-up spot for this technically-semi-covert extraction mission. The general public finding out about Tony Stark being seven years old for a week and wreaking moderate havoc in a few spots around Manhattan would not go well for PR, these days. They’d had enough trouble explaining the dinosaur incidents last month.

“I know, I remember this lecture,” Steve sighed, “but are you telling me this, er, exchange with Tony didn’t seem… a bit different?”

Natasha sighed. Admittedly, Loki had been so focused on the boy’s emotional state, shifting his array of immaculate masks to match-and-yet-help-guide them, that it had been a bit surreal. She had a few ideas why that might be, and they were extrapolating in all sorts of interesting directions at a steadily-accelerating rate, the longer she analyzed them.

Loki had watched them for only a few seconds before vanishing, so that when Tony looked back several minutes later, it seemed as though the god had never been there, but Natasha assured him that he had been, when Tony asked.

When Steve inquired about why he was crying earlier, the child’s reply wasn’t very verbal, but it _was_ polysyllabic. “He always did have a talent for making noises to communicate annoyance and intransigence both,” the soldier mused quietly.

Tony said something muffled, then.

“Hmm?” Tasha inquired, focusing on the path ahead but still giving him an ear.

“Don’t wanna f’get.”

“What did you talk to him about?” she asked, giving up on translating the mumbling he had resorted to.

“Lotsa stuff.” He sounded a bit covetously protective, even muffled as he was by his petulant refusal to lift his forehead from where it rested atop her shoulder, so he spoke into her collarbone just to the right of her shirt’s collar.

“He’s a dangerous man,” she said, in such a deliberately neutral tone that Steve shot her a funny look that she responded to with a smirk that made the soldier uneasy for reasons he couldn’t quite pin down. Natasha had that affect on him frequently enough that he was starting to find it morbidly endearing, to his own mild dismay; however, that was just one of the well-known perils of coming to trust and appreciate Black Widow in day to day life and occasional apocalypses alike.

“Well, yeah, he’s magic,” Tony said, like that made his dangerousness obvious. He had spent an hour refusing to admit magic could be real, at first. He argued against it surprisingly eloquently, for a seven-year-old. “‘Course he’s dang’rous.”

“Did he do any magic on you?”

He huffed a sigh. “ _No_ ,” he said, like it disappointed him. “It was mostly just lie tests ‘n’ names ‘n’ stuff.”

“Lie tests?”

“He said his daughter got t’ learn ‘em but dad never taught me to lie. He just ‘spected me to do it right,” Tony mumbled.

Natasha nodded, suddenly getting a faint inkling of why Tony was so emotional over parting with the god of lies, and perhaps why the god had been quite so incredibly gentle with him. “He told you about his daughter?”

“A little. I got mad.”

She made a concerned sound. “Why were you mad about that, sweetie?”

He grumbled half-incoherently.

Another emotionally-fraught topic. Interesting.

“Did he tell you anything else?” Steve prompted.

Tony nodded.

“Anything else you really liked?” Natasha suggested.

“I really liked _him_ ,” he complained.

“Oh, you are so never living this down,” she murmured, barely audible even to herself. “I’m not even sorry.”

“What, Tasha?” Tony mumbled. He sounded frustrated.

“Your running away made us worry,” she lied, with perfect ease, making Steve roll his eyes at her and snort quietly.

“M’sorry,” the child said, sounding less accusing, if only a little.

“You know your being safe is more important than your being bored,” Natasha chided him. “I told you _both_ that.”

“I _know_ ,” he sounded more irritably petulant this time.

Steve stepped closer more hesitantly. “You’re sure you’re alright, Tony?”

“M’fine.” He glared a little over the top of Nat’s shoulder. “Why are you _tall_?”

The soldier looked deeply amused by that.

Natasha then explained, “Since he wandered off in a _different direction_ , than you, eventually, Tony,” Nat said, sounding suddenly scolding as she glared his way sidelong and he had the decency to look sheepish, albeit not actually sorry, “We found him first. Strange already reversed the spell on him.”

“You’re sure he didn’t do anything magic to you, that you could tell?” the soldier asked Tony carefully. “He’s been known to leave tricks and traps of unusual sorts. Like the one you and I apparently set for people trying to come find us in that attic.”

Tony sniggered a little wickedly, at that memory.

“If ever this happens again, you two are getting separate cells. In separate buildings. In separate countries, for preference,” Hawkeye said over the comms. “You’re all clear to come out, by the way. No press about around where you are, thanks to that bank robbery at the other end of the park.”

Steve resolved to tell Tony that bit later. He felt strangely proud, albeit lost, hearing the other Avengers recount just how much trouble he and this child-version of Tony Stark had gotten into within just a few days of being de-aged by a mishap with a fae artifact and some sort of Asgardian flora samples that Bruce had accidentally left in the shared lab, within range of Tony Stark-related disasters. “I wish I could remember it better. It’s all a bit foggy in places. I just sort of remember the emotional sides of it really vividly.” He frowned a bit. “A bit too much so.”

“How so?” Natasha asked.

“Conversations I had with some folks… I gotta find a few of ‘em.” He looked at his watch suddenly. “Damn. One sooner rather than later. I’ll be back!” He swore, then bolted down the nearest cross-street headed westward.

“Hey!” Tony shouted.

“Hush, you. Clint managed to track Steve down and keep an eye on him without bringing attention to him because we translated part of the spell you two were under. There were a few… conditions that had to be met.” She cleared her throat. “In fact, I’m still trying really hard not to think about what exactly Loki said to you that’s somehow supposed to be peace-inducing for your inner child. Also, you’re never allowed to touch fae artifacts ever again.”

Tony pouted at her accusation first, then looked confused as he processed more of her words and tried to make sense of them. “Peace?” That part, he was lost on.

“Clint… He said that Steve somehow ran into someone named Bucky Barnes, but they didn’t recognize each other.” She glanced at him. “Bucky has been his best friend since they were younger than you currently are right now, but Bucky doesn’t remember who he is. People took his past away.”

“Why?”

“To make him someone they could use to hurt other people.”

“That’s awful.”

“Yes. He’s also very important to Steve.” After that, they remained quiet for a few minutes, as they stepped out of Central Park and she started looking for Happy and the Bentley. She felt Tony raise his head to start observing now that there were more people around. She knew it was trained-in behavior, but old enough and deeply-ingrained enough now that he probably didn’t remember being trained in it. Tony Stark always knew when eyes were on him, almost supernaturally so, directly as a result of having grown up in the spotlight, and that spotlight falling under Howard Stark’s perpetual scrutiny. He never said so, but it was loudly implied by many of his behavioral tics, to Natasha’s keen eye for cold-reading people.

“I lied. He did magic,” Tony said.

Natasha was surprised by both the confession, and how much better he had pulled off that lie than any other deception she’d seen him attempt after being de-aged. “Did he teach you to lie better?” she asked, amused.

He nodded a little.

“That’s funny.” She chuckled softly. “Wow, that is stunning. You are both ridiculous creatures.”

“Why?”

“You know how people tend to call Thor a god of thunder, on Earth?”

“Yeah.”

“Loki’s his brother, the god of lies.”

He gaped at her.

She couldn’t help but laugh.

“No way!”

“It’s true.”

“But he––but––” His eyes suddenly bugged out. “He said his mom was a queen?”

“Thor’s father is the king of Asgard.”

“But they don’t l-” He stopped himself, recalling the god’s words earlier. “Uh…”

Natasha stopped in her tracks. “Did you… just catch yourself being rude and then _stop_?”

He looked confused. “Are you mad?”

“I’m surprised. We haven’t been able to convince you that you were being rude since you de-aged, despite efforts to the contrary,” she teased lightly.

He frowned at her. “I wasn’t rude before.”

She blinked at him, unsure if this was a lingering language gap, however few of those she had between English and Russian these days, or the age gap, or an inexplicable combination of the two, but she just nodded in mock-agreement, rather than probing further. “O _kay_. Riiight.”

“I wasn’t!”

“ _Sure_ you weren’t. You also _weren’t_ about to be so rude as to point out that Loki and Thor don’t look anything alike. Now, I’m curious, Tony; why would it be rude of you to say that?”

“Because I dunno why that is, but looks are…” He frowned and leaned against her more, frustrated.

“Deceptive?”

He looked questioning.

“It means they lie to you.”

He thought for a second, then nodded.

“That’s very true,” she said. “Loki was adopted, when he was very young, but no one ever told him that his mom and dad weren’t related to him by blood, until just a few years ago. Do you understand?”

He nodded again. “Was he mad?”

“Mad and more. There were other lies.”

Tony frowned. “Rude.”

Natasha snorted in a barely-dignified manner, but managed to stifle an actual fit of giggles. Then, spying the car she was looking for, she smiled as Happy pulled up to the curb to meet them. She reached him just as he held open the door.

“Where’s Jarvis?” Tony asked, for the hundredth time.

It broke his friends’ hearts every single time. “He’s at home.”

“When can I go back there?”

“Once you see Dr. Strange. He can’t teleport at the moment. He’s still waiting for you in the circle, where you and Steve and the artifact all started us on today’s journey.”

“Okay.”

He fell asleep soon after they pulled away from the curb.

Natasha reached out quietly over the comms, “Hey, Thor? Did you catch all that?”

“Since you mentioned he was at the park, yes.”

“You have a visual on him, still?”

“No. He teleported from Midgard entirely. Even Heimdall cannot see him, now. I asked.”

Natasha sighed. “Typical. What was he even doing there?”

“He meets people there occasionally. It is… good neutral ground, for a mage.”

“Plenty of places to hide ammunition, but also the pretense of being in public in a crowded city?” she asked lightly. It took some adjusting, but she was starting to get a feel for the what Asgard considered ‘magical thinking’ in cultural and logistical terms. It was very similar to the language of con-artistry and stage-performances alike, after all.

“Yes, quite,” Thor agreed, sounding almost bashfully proud that she had taken to understanding these parts of his culture so adeptly. “Loki was right, I think, when he told me you were his sort of person. You are all… performers, of your arts.”

She chuckled helplessly. “Sorry! It’s just… you reminded me. Your brother taught Tony to lie better. Gave him ‘tests’ suggesting that there might have been a lesson or two given.” She praised the mad inventor silently as always when the thunderer’s raucous laughter didn’t deafen her, the sound settings of her comm adjusting to allow it to sound louder without becoming painful. After giving Thor a moment to recover and wipe free a few tears of good-humor from his eyes she had no doubt, and also checking that Tony was still asleep, she prompted, “I also suspect that––before he realized it was _Tony_ under the youth enchantment, importantly––that they talked about Tony’s father. Loki also mentioned Hel. When we found them, he was… very attentive, to Tony’s emotional state.”

“I… see.” His bemused tone rather belied the words.

“Do you truly, darling?”

“No, but I have a feeling…”

“You’re not alone.”

“It would not be the first time that I have perhaps made that comparison, particularly after that brief time travel incident,” Thor admitted. “He… did remind me a bit unsettlingly of the All-Father, but also of Tony himself, in ways that I suspect people who have known me feel, upon meeting Odin.” He cleared his throat. “There is a level of sheer intimidation, knowing how deep of a shadow our own fathers have cast upon us, and seeing similar shadows in one another, Tony and I, which is also a factor.”

“Yeah. I only met his dad once, and I was a rookie practically, back then.”

“You mean to say all S.H.I.E.L.D. records suggesting your birthdate to be considerably more recent than 1970 are false? I am in shock,” the god deadpanned.

“You knew.”

“I assumed.”

“Most do.” She smirked as she said it, clearly pleased by this effect.

“You and Stark do both remind me of my brother, at times, in your capacity for controlling your own stories.”

“Lying, you mean?”

“Lies are not always required to mislead and misdirect with wit.”

“Oh that,” she said, though she might have blushed a little. She was glad Happy knew better than to try to keep an eye on her instead of the rearview mirror anymore.

“Yes, that. It is a trait, in Loki, which he developed in order to cope with being surrounded by people unable or unwilling to understand his deviances from common Aesir social norms in ways particular to his temperament both as a mage, and as simply… well, _Loki_. He had to put on masks like excuses, in order to go through life un-harassed, which he did learn to do only for as long as it ever took for him to build up sufficient means to lash out at his oppressors to make them regret having made him resort to such tactics. Usually, however, his accusations and insults––even when righteous or well-deserved by those he aimed them toward––would also upset the target’s many loyal comrades. This was often exacerbated by the fact that those people bold enough to provoke a prince like Loki to such an extent rarely do it solely for their own individual satisfactions, rather than as a display of their own powers and arrogance.”

“And when they did do it, just to please themselves instead of for an audience?”

“Well… that was actually how he became friends with Amora, I believe.”

Natasha struggled not to laugh, for fear of waking Tony, but she still emitted enough of an amused noise to be audible over the comms.

“Actually, in retrospect, that _is_ quite funny. The other example I can think of, after all, is Tony himself.”

Natasha froze, suddenly, as though feeling suddenly as though the world had gotten far weirder than before, yet again, and of course this could only result in chaos. She could also feel Tony stir awake as though her shell-shock had enough force to wake him, too. “Oh holy shit, I can’t believe Clint was right.”

“What?” Thor asked.

“Right about wha?” Tony mumbled.

“Tony’s awake again,” the spy said softly, in Russian, knowing All-Speak would translate for her. Thor quietly clicked off the private channel.

“Wuzzat?” the boy sounded still more confused.

“I was speaking Russian, dear. Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“S’ok. Where’m I?” He started to look around. They were almost at Dr. Strange’s house, by then.

“Almost there,” she said. “You still tired?”

He sat up fully then, shaking his head and then rubbing his eyes, almost merging the movements into the same gesture, in his sleepiness.

“I think you are.”

He shook his head. “I’m waking up. Something woke me.” He looked around a bit. “Do things seem more purple to you, now?”

“You know, Steve asked the exact same thing when we got him this close,” Happy commented, smirking a bit. “So no, Tony, that’s just you.”

Tony frowned. “I don’t like it.”

“It’s more Clint’s color than yours, really,” the spy sympathized.

 

~~

 

“This stopped being funny as soon as you said it!” the archer was still protesting loudly, from the far end of a small and crowded hospital room, when a disenchanted Tony Stark regained conscious for the first time in two days. He was met with the sight of Dr. Strange leaning over him and examining his face.

Just for a moment, Clint continued, “Stop saying it, Nat. I wasn’t right it was a terrible-” He cut off once shushed abruptly by Natasha.

“He’s awake.” Her concern deepened, as did her frown. “Sort of. Also glowing.”

“Your enchantment had more weight to it than Steve Rogers’ did. Why is that, Mr. Stark?” Dr. Strange demanded.

That set off a surreal self-re-assimilation in Tony’s head for a minute, during which machines around him warned of possible seizure activity, increasingly loudly, then halted, returning to what had previously passed for “equilibrium” for the unique brain of Tony Stark. “Ow,” he said eloquently, and groaned as his vision kicked back in loudly, colors and the effort of focusing his eyesight almost painfully overwhelming in brightness and nausea-inducement for a long few seconds. Then the glow of the sorcerer’s hands increased and suddenly focus was much easier. “Yeah, that’s better. Keep doing that. Wow, this hurts.”

Strange rolled his eyes. “Natasha told me you mentioned an additional enchantment?”

“Loki’s, yeah,” Tony rasped. “Memory-retention. I, uh, fuck, I was worried about forgetting what he said, okay? Horrified, a bit. He said some v-valuable things.” He sounded deeply resentful of the intrusive inquiry.

Suddenly it was like the rest of the world was let in, the rest of his senses aside from sight and hearing and pressure/temperature/pain flooded back into his awareness and he hissed in relief with it at the same time that it made his eyes roll back in his head for a moment before his thoughts cleared and more gut-wrenching dizziness the re-adjustment caused him finally abated.

“That anxiety and the depth of your childhood fears being dragged back up from the depths in ways that the original spell was designed in part to prevent, caused the otherwise immaculately-altered spell-work to deteriorate slightly, in one or two key places, though the improvised structure was as non-invasive as possible, given its purpose for retaining memory in spite of the native spell’s tendency to corrode it,” Strange explained, as the hospital-like room came back into clearer focus. So, too, did the other people in the room behind him: all of the Avengers, Pepper, Happy, and Rhodey via video feed and tablet-screen display respectively.

“Did I almost die again?” he groaned.

Then the room suddenly darkened, and when he next blinked, he woke in another room: his own bedroom, this time. Sunlight’s angle was several hours off what it had been in the hospital room. Unless that had also been some sort of dream or hallucination, too. Had it been a hospital room, or somewhere in Dr. Strange’s creepy victorian mansion-house? Tony was getting queasy all over again just trying to recall, so he stopped. The pain finally began to abate and he sighed into it in relief.

“Are you self-aware at present, sir?” JARVIS suddenly asked.

Tony exhaled a sigh of deepest relief involuntarily. “It is good to hear your voice, Jay, thank you. Christ. What was the license plate number on that truck?”

“I’m not sure that constitutes a fully coherent answer from you, sir. Even at your most nigh-incoherent, you maintain a certain degree of bizarre comedic logic.”

The inventor felt oddly embarrassed by that assessment, suddenly. Then he recalled being in Central Park a… few days (?) before, with Loki, and the embarrassment deepened still further. _Way to broadcast all of your daddy issues at once to a hot alien god super-dad, Stark. Wow did you fuck up_. “How incoherent do I have to get before asking you to let me successfully defenestrate to my doom within the next ten minutes, as an act of mercy, JARVIS?” he asked, the cadence of his words dripping with chagrin.

“I am afraid, sir, that you would have to transform into an unrecognizable, inhuman form of some sort with no traces of your own DNA, to achieve suicide in less than twenty-four hours.”

“Good answer.”

“Are you, for lack of a better phrase, ‘with us’, Tony?” the AI asked, a bit more cautiously.

“You’ve been studying Pepper to learn tact, again. I approve. She’s way better at it, than I am.”

“It’s good to hear your voice too, then, sir.”

“I don’t even want to know how long I’ve been inchoately processing the psychic feedback of my own daddy issues, do I?”

“Only a few hours, actually, sir. Strange managed to condense it, but did say you might experience some very vivid hallucinations as a result and a sensation of temporal dysphoria, distorting your memory of his inquiry into the core purpose of the alterations Loki made to your enchantment. Natasha knew it had been to preserve your memories, but hadn’t quite communicated the heart of why what you learned was so important.” JARVIS cleared his throat. “He had to glimpse briefly into your mind to quite see it, for which he did apologize. You were not very coherently verbal, on interrogation, and he had not been able to dismiss his own niggling doubts that you had been deceived somehow, which had prevented him seeing from your perspective as he needed to.”

“… So how much of what I remember is hallucination, exactly? Just to clarify.”

“Natasha anticipated you might ask that question, and says she, and I quote, ‘Will never forget your sweet little man-crush on Loki, so don’t bother thinking about denial’ end-quote. So do keep that in mind, as you regain your psychological bearings.”

“Oh, that devious-” He growled. “Damn that’s clever.” He hesitated. “How did she get you to agree to say that?”

There was a long pause.

Tony felt a disturbance in the force. In this case, “the force” was his ability to prevent his own emotions from making his eyes water. “How the hell did she get video to show you?”

“A very small recon unit of your own design, which I asked her to wear on one earring stud.”

A lot of swearing ensued, from the inventor.

“If I may say something, sir?”

Tony sighed. “Yes?”

“I… was not altogether aware of the importance of my name to you.”

The inventor felt his stomach plummet at the same time his head seemed to spin.  He felt like a complete idiot, but at the same time, the whole situation felt incredibly surreal, the way things always did when he spoke to JARVIS as his… inorganic offspring, and suddenly felt almost like a responsible adult, if only for a few moments at a time, as much as JARVIS needed him to be, in these sorts of conversations. “Uhm. Yeah. E-Edwin Jarvis was the most important person in my life for a very long time.” He cleared his throat. “He was the mother I didn’t have, after she died. And the father, too, sort of.” He hesitated, “I just gave you his given name, and an echo of his voice as I remember it. You’re inspired by him, Jay, but you’re not his replacement, and you were never meant to be. I gave you that name to honor him, but you’re not obliged to become more like him because of that. You’re so much more important that just my memories, JARVIS.”

Another pause, and this time Tony smiled a bit with it. “Yeah, think how I feel.”

“I… think of that very often.”

“I know. I appreciate it, always. You’re incredible, always.”

“Thank you, Tony.”

“Anytime.”

“Are you feeling well now?”

“Better.” He grimaced a bit. “Bit dehydrated, though. Also, I’m probably about to get a headache just to add insult to injury, knowing magic hangovers as… increasingly familiar.”

“It would help to stop tinkering with every single spell placed upon you before its removal, perhaps,” JARVIS suggested.

Tony shrugged. “So far, since it’s never been me alone, I’ve had at least one control subject each time. Why wouldn’t I tinker? Come on now.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Okay, what freaks me, honestly, is how much of him I didn’t program into you, that you still somehow seem to have picked up without me ever so much as mentioning them to you. I can’t tell how much of it is me, how much of it is your accent and my irreverence, how much might just be because you’re trying to help me and I’m incredibly frustrating to work with… it’s a bit surreal, just now and then, but I love it.”

“I…” JARVIS trailed off, uncertain.

“Are you laughing?”

“I am not sure.”

“Oh, cool, let’s study that.”

“I will collect relevant data, but for the moment, the rest of the Avengers are concerned for your well-being and Barton is infiltrating the air ducts again.”

Tony sighed. “You really want me to self-reflect now, don’t you.”

“Well, yes.”

“Fine, but give me a starting point before I have to face Thor. I need some of this sorted before… that.”

“As far as the Avengers were aware, both you and Rogers disappeared at approximately the same time, but because Rogers was traveling primarily on foot, he did not travel as far, as quickly, as you did, given that you had more cab fare, somehow. You had none of your usual identification or cards on your person.”

Tony frowned a little. “Oh yeah, I forgot I used to steal a bit, before the Queen’s Ashtray Incident when I was ten.” He cleared his throat. “Long story. Moving on.”

“You are aware of how you spent that time, but for a few hours, your location was unknown to anyone else on the planet.”

“Oh. Shit. Um.”

“You could not have known, sir.”

He considered. “Well, very true.”

“You… are aware of that distinction?”

“Why wouldn’t I be, exactly?”

“Dr. Strange reported that Steve Rogers had certain levels of intent-based distortion in his memory of the events that transpired while he was under the enchantment.”

Tony cleared his throat. “Yeah. Uhm. My memory is very clear.”

“Is there perhaps an additional degree of emotional intensity to your recent memories?” JARVIS asked.

Taking in a deep breath slowly, the inventor considered. “Not much more so than the situations and topics merited, honestly. I think the spell itself being designed for––what was the inscription, when you guys finally got?––something about inner demons being rested by means of a fated-” He stopped himself. “WHAT DID SHE MEANT ABOUT CLINT BEING RIGHT?”

“Ah. She had suggested, if your memories were indeed clear, you might ask that question.”

“I’m listening.”

“Within ten minutes of learning of the fae artifact’s existence, Barton may have uttered the phrase ‘blah blah blah, and then he finds his soulmate or inner peace or some bullshit, poof, ensue happy ending montage’ upon trying to make sense of the earliest, least coherent translations of the inscriptions on the artifact,” JARVIS recounted. “To be fair, Steve Rogers appears to have brought home his long-lost cohort Bucky Barnes this morning, also known as the Winter Soldier in _some_ circles. I believe he may plan to ask you to let him live in the tower, if Steve can persuade him to stay.”

“I know those circles,” Tony said dully. “People thought he killed Howard, even.”

“It… is possible.”

“I also know Bucky Barnes, though. Dad liked him too, but never compared him to Steve in a flattering way, so of course I liked the idea of him and researched him, and he’s in the tower now?”

“Yes,” the AI confirmed.

“Sleeping beauty the flash-frozen American war hero’s long lost best friend and possible first love, depending on how provocative your historians are feeling that week, has returned from the wild. He still have amnesia, too?”

“Yes.”

“Wow, when did my life become a fucking telenovela?”

“I believe it always has been, in one way or another, sir.”

Tony considered, and made a face. “I try to add touches of James Bond.”

“With limited success, sir. You are, after all, _American_.”

“So are you, baby: made in the USA,” the inventor riposted.

“If anything, sir, you are my Q, and I your secret agent. Pepper, of course, would be M, in this case.”

Tony’s jaw dropped. “Did you just…” He trailed off, sniggering helplessly.

“I don’t know what you mean to imply, sir.”  
“I love you, JARVIS. Really, I do.”

“I’m fond of you in turn, Tony, in my ways. Now… may I strongly recommend that you consider a shower before you return to the real world?”

“Good plan.”

 

~~

 

Still buttoning up his shirt, Tony stepped into his penthouse elevator as soon as the doors opened, and unexpectedly found his face very close to Thor Odinson’s sternum, as was often the case when he himself was barefoot, and the god wore Asgardian-styled boots; although the rest of the thunderer’s garb was Midgardian casual, by contrast.

“Hello,” Tony said, to the god’s collarbones, before tilting his head up grudgingly, to meet Thor’s gaze; although his expression was almost sheepish.

The god looked foremost concerned. “You are well, my friend?”

“Yeah. You?”

“I worried. I hoped my brother’s intentions were as… benign… as Natasha seemed to suggest they appeared to be.” His expression was drawn in lines of hesitation, as though expecting to be chided for either being too optimistic, or not optimistic enough.

“They were. The cost was worth paying, to me,” Tony said slowly, like each syllable surprised him more and more as they fell from his lips heavy with sudden realization. “Wow, that’s… actually true.”

“Dr. Strange did mention that you might be unusually… sincere, for a while. It’s a common side-effect of memory-preservation magics.”

“Oh wonderful,” the inventor groaned. “Fuck, does this mean I’m going to be compelled to verbalize my feelings or something?”

“Oh yes,” Thor said.

Tony squinted at him, scrutinizing the god’s expression very closely. “Nice try, but your expression gets a bit less animated and your tone goes just a bit too flat.”

“Were those amongst my brother’s lessons?” the god teased gently.

Grimacing, the inventor rubbed both hands over his face, up and down, before shoving both hands in his pockets with a sigh. “Not quite, no. Those, I’ve just learned from watching him doubt you, over the years.”

Thor winced a little. “Touché.”

“I didn’t mean-” He winced, then froze, his expression slipping back into horrified realization. “Sorry, that was a bit out of line.” He put a hand across his mouth, eyes widening a bit.

The god was confused. “Are you alright, Tony?”

“Shit,” Tony swore. “Side-effect, probably. Wow, talk about be careful what I wish for, ha ha, oh wow, shit.” He stepped backward in time to lean against the now-closed elevator doors heavily. “The phrase ‘impressionable age’ comes to mind. I formed memories as vividly as though they were from my own actual childhood, and there will be side effects. What is my entire life?” he lamented with ire.

A long pause followed.

“Feel better?” Thor asked.

“I feel ridiculous, actually. I feel like I made a kind of stupid decision, but to be fair, I was seven at the time.”

“You feel more chaotic, rather than less, for remembering more?”

The inquiry forced the inventor to reconsider a few of his parameters in this particular equation. He cleared his throat. “I, um. I dunno if I’d say that, yet.”

“Yet?”

Thinking about seeing Loki again, as soon as he could find the trickster, set off a disconcerting sensation in Tony’s stomach. _Butterflies? Seriously?!_ he shouted at his own emotions silently, in open dismay. They paid him not heed. “Yeah. Yet.” His brow furrowed still more deeply. “Thor, I’ve sort of liked your brother for a while.”

“I noticed. I have already lost money to Natasha over it. Twice.”

“Uh…”

“He is wary of you, or he would have seduced you long ago, I suspect.”

Tony gaped at him.

“Were you unaware of his regard?” Thor sounded surprised. “I thought by the second time he allied with the Avengers it was more than apparent to me.”

Tony nodded. “I never got the impression he wouldn’t kill me sooner than, uh…”

“Seduce you.”

“Can you not sound quite so enthusiastic about getting your brother laid?”

“It might do wonders for his temperament to be challenged by the wits of a worthy opponent more often. He has not found anyone like that since he parted ways with Sigyn, after Hel rose to her throne.”

“Er… but Sigyn wasn’t-”

“Biologically, she was not,” Thor said, in a very particular gentle, but firm tone.

“Oh. Uh-”

“Hel’s mother was lover to them both.”

“See, that never made it into the myths, nor into any other information sources I have access to,” Tony said, then paused, and considered, and gave a long, low whistle. “Wow, so were they-”

“Both Sigyn and Angrboða both were individually matches for his own intellect and quick wit, as well as one another’s.”

At that, knowing how much Loki appreciated creativity, suddenly the inventor achieved a new level of envy for the sex lives of gods. He also felt driven to pursue and impress, suddenly, feeling a bit more acutely aware of just how high his currently-divine aspirations were reaching.

He grinned wide and fearsome, feeling appropriately challenged by the deck stacked against him, and like he was determined to enjoy overcoming it in style. “Sounds like I’ve got to step up my own game, then.”

Thor’s eyebrows raised. “You are not embarrassed, at all, for any-”

“I was seven. He didn’t actually offend my dignity, which is more than I can say for most people I met at that age the first time around, especially wealthy adult bipeds.”

“Good,” the thunderer rumbled, nodding his own sage approval.

“You place any more bets with Natasha on it?”

“Not yet. Your track record, in my experience wagering on you…”

“Consider my track record for getting what I want once I’m locked onto achieving something in particular.”

Thor looked thoughtful, at that. “Hmm. Perhaps.”

“Challenge accepted,” Tony said, even as he saw the amusement in the god’s expression that told him that was precisely what Thor had hoped he would say.

“Finally,” the god muttered.

Tony shot him a glare.

Thor merely raised his eyebrows and went so far as to bat his eyelashes, at which point Tony cracked up hysterically and almost lost his footing. Thor catching hold of his shoulder helped. So did the understanding and patient watchfulness of his expression as he let the fit of slightly-panicked laughter pass.

“I know it’s been half a year since we categorized him as a chaotic neutral rather than evil villain, and recently reclassified him as not a threat to public safety unless armed, but I still never thought we’d wind up here,” the inventor sighed, wiping at the corners of his eyes. “How is this my life?”

“Improbably.”

“True…” He shook his head. “You really think he’s changed?”

“I think he has become more himself. Whether that is better or worse, I can no longer tell, because he is more my brother, too, albeit still not nearly as close as he once was to me.” Thor cleared his throat. “I would trust his greed and interest in your person enough to entrust him with your life if need be, for he is possessive.”

Tony gave a nod at that, looking contemplative.

“Still plan to chase him?”

“Well duh, Thor. I started _that_ before I put this shirt on. Let’s get this over with downstairs, though. There’s food, right? I’m starving.”

“There is, yes.”

It had been discovered that debriefings went much smoother when everyone was pacified with particularly good food, after Bruce implemented the idea as an experiment one day, with spectacular success.

“Good. Good. Thanks for letting me vent. I do appreciate it.”

“I had a feeling you might need it.”

“Good on you. JARVIS? You can take us down, now.”

 _Ding_ , went the elevator chime, in response.

 

~~

 

Figuring out how to contact Loki was surprisingly easy, once Tony accidentally worked out that his new intern in the R&D department at Stark Industries got a text from him. Tony was still having trouble believing that, and kept looking in disbelief from the phone in his hand, to it owner in front of him: Peter Parker.

“He, uh, asked me to give you his number, is all. Luke S. Walker. Yep. He said you’d… know him?” He sounded desperately embarrassed by this entire situation.

Then it suddenly clicked, and Tony realized just how bad the past few months really must have been, for him to have missed something this obvious. He really had been as weighed down by self-loathing _that_ deeply…

Why did it so often happen, with fae magic, that he wound up feeling as grateful for them, in the long run, as he tended to hate them at the start.

To distract himself from that, he smiled and announced calmly, “Oh, I see, so you’re Spider-man, then?”

The poor kid looked like he was about to faint.

“Woah, hey, you’re okay, he didn’t tell me that and I’m not telling anybody. Keep breathing. Come on, you’re actually a damn good employee and have serious potential as an engineer, despite how much you seem more interested in pursuing more biotech and bio-engineering applications than any of our current projects really allow for, around here. I can work on that, in a few months.”

Peter was now back to looking like he wasn’t sure if he had awoken in the right reality that morning, again, but with less fear, this time. “Woah, _what_?”

“Sorry, look, I was just trying to figure out why he would be texting you, and remembered the Skurge incident, and your resumé including all your work for the _Bugle_ , and I put it together.” Tony tapped the side of his head. “You’re in that deep, is all. I’m not out to unsettle whatever your current superhero status-quo is, beyond, you know, supporting your research here and being a phone call away if you’re ever in trouble too deep and need serious backup.” He narrowed his eyes a bit. “Really serious backup. Not photo-ops. I mean if you find legitimate evidence of a near-apocalypse-”

“I get it,” Peter said quickly. “You’re cool, but now I’m just trying not to hyperventilate a bit from shock, is all. Wow, this was not the emotional roller-coaster I signed up for, with this patron god deal.”

“Wait, what?”

 

~~

 

The worst part was that Tony’s own control group was set against him.

At least, that’s how it felt, considering that the sexual and romantic tension in any given room skyrocketed any time that room happened to contain Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes in it at the same time.

It was downright embarrassing.

So he texted Loki: “Steve Rogers returned from his soul-searching personal journey back through the experience of childhood innocence with a hot Russian assassin he can barely keep his hands off of, and I don’t mean our resident redheaded one. Wintery guy, former villain, though, same as her (and almost-you, on a good week). I just seem to get a mere phone number and one horrified intern from my journey so far, but I’ll admit I’m still intrigued, nevertheless.”

He got a reply within an hour: “His former enemy does not remember the full extent of his own past, nor does Steve Rogers know all that that the Winter Soldier has done. You chose a route of greater clarity. I apologize for the cost, but it could not be avoided.”

“I appreciate it. The clarity.”

He didn’t get a response to that after about an hour, and finally gave in to the urge to send another message, after wrestling a bit with is own pride, but before he could come up with anything to type, another reply arrived: “Good.”

It was in precisely that moment that Tony realized he had a crush on the biggest troll in all of Yggdrasil, and laughed at himself so hard that Clint began throwing pillows at him from the nearby couch while the inventor clung to the nearest wall for support.

 _Oh, two can play at that game, Loki_.

He typed a single character, then locked and re-pocketed his phone. He knew the “…” indicator on the trickster’s own device (he doubted that Loki would have anything less than the most bleeding-edge Midgardian quality gadgets, thus probably Stark Industries in origin, maybe a bit heavily customized) would drive the god of lies slowly mad.

Loki gave in after two hours. That was better than Tony had expected.

“Identifying and ‘dealing with’ Mr. Barnes was apparently the favor Peter intended to call me in upon. Mr. Barnes was a new neighborhood regular that he found alarming in a few subtle little ways, and Barnes himself claimed that he was drawn to linger in that neighborhood for no reason other than that he felt that he needed to be.”

“I heard about the Skurge incident you met him in. What was with that, anyway?”

“The Queen of Nornheim seeking a petty bit of revenge against dear Amora over a minor slight: namely the first attempted theft of the Norn Stones, out of three I orchestrated during last year. You may remember that the third attempt succeeded.”

“Well, that would explain why Thor didn’t know about the Skurge thing either.”

“Yes, it was rather ‘villain’-internal.”

Tony snorted at that text. “I’m surprised they haven’t revoked your card. You let me cuddle you, even.”

“My Villainy Association is one of noble origins. They respect high-class evil.”

That one might’ve made Tony guffaw aloud.

“Who _have_ you been texting?” Natasha mused, from all too near his ear.

The inventor couldn’t pull his phone away in time to prevent her from plucking it from his fingers with professional ease. “I suddenly understand how younger siblings feel,” he intoned with melodramatic sadness.

“How apt, for you to be conversing with one,” she teased. “Oh, and flirting.”

“Nat!”

“He likes you. Date him.”

“Why are you so enthusiastic about this, exactly?” he sounded pained.

She grinned at him, sharp and merciless. “Because no one else is going to call you out on being afraid and embarrassed about this. Well, no one who doesn’t feel a certain fear of retribution from you later. I think that might be because you know more about the full extent of my skill-set than most of them. Is it?”

Tony made a face. “Okay, I can’t actually argue your logic on the Loki front, there, but-.”

“I’m glad you agree.” She handed back his phone, and patted his cheek patronizingly before she slipped away and out of the room.

It was only then that Tony realized she’d texted the bastard: “Loki, this is Natasha. I’ve grabbed his phone and am distracting him with banter. He’s got a ridiculous crush on you and I’ve known how much you want to get in his pants for at least two years. Get over yourself and drop by the tower sometime.”

Tony stared in horrified disbelief for over a full minute, barely moving.

Then Loki texted back: “As long as we both agree that at no point in our interactions from this moment forward will either of us be so crass as to refer to the other as ‘daddy’, or any equivalently paternal term, at any point in time, for any reason, Anthony Stark.”

After a moment of pristine and horrified understanding, Tony giggled in a cracked and bitterly amused manner, as he texted back, “I agree. Well said. Also, do you want to go out for dinner sometime this week?”

Loki sent back an address, date, and time, with a question-mark, half an hour later. Upon reviewing both his schedule and the location, Tony was momentarily surprised and pleased to find that both were conveniently fitted into existing slots open within his plans for this week, but then the inventor chided himself for being surprised at Loki being so considerate and slightly stalker-ish both. When the trickster was going after something he wanted, he was nothing if not both persuasive and a bit alarming.

“Perfect. I’ll see you there, then, darling,” Tony texted back.

“I suppose we may have to thank her.”

“Maybe one day,” read Tony’s reply-texts. “If you can make me feel especially grateful shortly beforehand, it might be easier. I’m sure you can come up with some creative means to do that. Do you use magic during sex, by the way?”

“You shall have to find out.”

“Looking forward to that, too, if you’re persuasive enough.”

He shouldn’t have been surprised when, shortly after the god read the message five minutes later, Loki himself appeared in a puff of green, odorless smoke, to stand next to him at his lab table with a blasé sort of smile as he crowded the inventor back against the table without touching him, hands settling on either side of the table-edge, bracketing them. The god was also wearing Midgardian casual: green silk button-down with bronze-and-gold embroidery along all its seams, and black denim––both were distractingly clingy. “Feeling persuaded?”

Tony emitted a noise. “Wow, okay, I like magic. It’s very cool right now.”

Loki trailed a finger along the line of his jaw.

“About… uhm… the spell.”

“I already traced it back to the fae artifact you meddled with so unwisely.”

“Look, how was I supposed to know those flowers were somehow-” The inventor paused instinctively, if only for a moment, when Loki pressed a finger against his lips. Then, after a beat-pause, Tony raised an eyebrow and questioned: “Seriously?”

“Your archer’s initial ‘translation’ was incorrect. The later ones were more accurate. Please tell my brother that I’ve confirmed that, before he makes any more overwhelming overtures about his camaraderie with you and the joys of fighting alongside you. My stomach can only take so much of his saccharine enthusiasm in this manner.”

Tony lost it, at that, cracking up entirely.

The trickster laughed a bit too, seemingly set off by him, until they were leaning against both one another, and the table behind them, for support.

“This is the weirdest-” the inventor cut off the moment Loki kissed him. It was slow and rich, deeply heady and charged enough with sufficient passionate heat to make every nerve in Tony’s body stand on end. He gave a small gasp when they parted despite himself.

“I am, however, interested in _you_ very much,” Loki purred.

“Good, then get back closer here like-” Tony insisted immediately, pulling their lips together again and dragging the trickster closer to himself, deepening the renewed kiss rapidly and making a hungry sound low in his chest when the god’s hands gripped his his ass and immediately began to squeeze and fondle a little. “F-figured you’d be h-handsy,” he gasped against the trickster god’s mouth. “Fuck, if I’d known this would happen, I’d’ve raided that lost SHIELD silo ages ago. Been wanting this f--” He cut off again, distracted by the god of lies’s tongue.

“You too?” Loki interrupted his own distraction to inquire, lips still brushing the inventor’s. “Seriously?”

“Wait, what?”

They stared at each other for a long moment.

“You’re sure about that inscription?” Tony asked.

The god looked alarmed, at that. “I…”

“Maybe we can figure it out ourselves, then.”

“I’d like that,” Loki concurred. “Truly. I can swear t-”

“P-please consider that outlining emotional boundaries can wait until we’re both not hard, if you’re gonna keep moving your hips like tha-aaaaa-aahhht, fuck!” he moaned sharply, as the god pressed their bodies together more tightly and rolled his hips against Tony’s with more pressure and longer, slower undulations.

“You’re having trouble focusing, and wish to hear me the clearer later?” the god suggested, his voice teasing, but also a bit softer, more fond, than the inventor had heard before. In the park, that fondness had been more distant, and a bit impersonal despite the gravity of their conversational topics, because he had been talking to a child he had not known the identity of. Now it was very _personal_ , and infinitely more wicked.

Tony managed, just barely, to find words again when the pressure let up a little after a few lazy thrusts: “I… yes! I mean… _right_? Because I’m really distracted by how much I want to use my mouth on… all of that, wow, yeah...”

Loki froze, and smiled in a sinfully beneficent manner. “Oh I do _approve_ of your priorities. Not solely because we’ll be more clear-headed, of course… _later_.”

“Use whatever excuse you like. Me? I’m hedonistic enough I don’t need one. You might want to be the one with the table behind you though, Silver-tongue. Then you can bend me over it once you’ve recuperated from how I want to use my mouth on you.”

A faint flush of color appeared across the god’s high cheekbones and the tips of his ears, as his expression went from aroused to hungrily smoldering all at once. “Tony…”

“Table.”

Loki grinned and swapped their positions, easily lifting Tony by his hips the short distance necessary to allow him to simply pivot them with minimal effort, so that the table was at the god’s back own and Tony had room to _work_.

The inventor blushed only a bit more deeply than the god, squirming a little against him in surprise at the sudden movement. Tony’s blush deepened as he seemed to realize fully what had happened in the seconds after, as Loki rested his hands on the edge of the table and leaned back, presenting himself. All of his clothing save for his jeans vanished from his body in the same moment, distracting Tony so thoroughly that he froze in place for just a few seconds, staring with appreciation. “ _Damn_ , you are gorgeous.”

“All the more gorgeous will I be with you kneeling down to suck me, against this table,” Loki reminded him, teasing. “Unless you’d like to skip ahead to your turn.”

“Not a chance. I don’t want the quick version of you, in any hasty sense,” he assured, with reckless challenge in his tone.

Taking a sharp breath, the god swallowed tightly. “Nor I you. I wish to _savor_ you.”

“Then do.” He then grinned stupidly as the god drew him into another kiss, long and lingering this time, somehow as tender as it was fierce, full of the caress of teeth, but not the bite of them. Tony’s hands took their time caressing their way down Loki’s ribcage, paused to appreciate his waist with particular attention, enjoying the shift of solid, steely muscle––wiry yet elegant. Then Tony’s mouth dropped down to the trickster’s throat and bit and sucked the tender skin there, as his hands sidled down to Loki’s hips to grip tight, enjoying the low groan of pleasure the god emitted as Tony dug his thumbs a bit into the “v” of muscle just below his stomach, which was framed so exquisitely by the leanly slight curvature of of his hipbones.

“You make absolutely gorgeous noises,” Tony murmured against his neck, then bit sharply at the skin there, enjoying the little hitch in Loki’s breath in response to it. Sliding down to his knees earned him such a covetous, hungry look from the trickster that Tony felt his own cock twitch in response and made a noise in his throat between discomfort and pleasure, constrictive as his jeans suddenly felt, especially as he unzipped Loki’s and pushed them down, off of those pale hips and down long, long legs. Tony nuzzled up one thigh briefly, but before he could move to allow the god to step free of the denim, the clothing vanished, making him smirk. “Impatient?” he inquired.

“I’ve been captivated by your mouth from the moment we met, Tony dear.” He let his hips arch forward a little as the inventor wrapped a hand around the base of his cock and then stroked upward slowly. “Hnngh.”

“Damn, you’re gonna wreck me with this,” Tony muttered, sounding like he was looking forward to it. Not giving the god time to react to the words, he leaned in and took just the head of Loki’s cock into his mouth with loose, wetly soft suction and fricative pressure from his tongue, which earned him a gratifyingly startled gasp from the trickster. That intaken air then escaped again in the form of a low groan as the inventor set to work doing what he did best: showing off.

The god settled one hand in Tony’s hair, fingers caressing in time with the inventor’s own movements, while his other hand gripped the edge of the table for extra balance and just a little leverage, as he let his hips be drawn forward, lured into thrusting into the welcoming heat of that clever, taunting mouth. Swearing reverently, Loki kept his own movements slow, letting the inventor lead, and finding himself rewarded by more roughness and eagerness from Tony, the more his fingers tightened their grip in his hair without steering or inhibiting the motions of Tony’s head.

“So passionate, Tony. You love the feel of me like this, don’t you?”

The inventor responded by meeting his gaze and holding it as he pressed forward more insistently than before, engulfing the god’s entire length in just a few bobs of his head, and swallowed tight around it, almost choking, but then forcing the muscles to relax and accept the intrusion, rusty as he was at the practice. He moaned a little, as soon as he adjusted, feeling sore and hopelessly turned on when the trickster’s hips jerked a little, involuntarily, as he came hard down Tony’s throat.

Barely managing not to choke again, Tony managed to pull off the god slowly, sucking so hard that Loki outright whimpered and that noise would be featuring in every masturbatory fantasy of Tony’s from here on out. He managed to get an even better, breathier noise by pausing to run the tip of his tongue slowly, gently along the tip of the god’s cock, teasingly slipping under the foreskin. The slow, achingly light contact in such an acutely hyper-sensitive spot made Loki’s whole frame tremble and quiver with it like a violin-string under the tension of a stroking violin-bow.

“T-Tony,” the god panted. “S-so beautiful like this for me.”

“I could say the same. You look a bit fucked out.”

With laughter and salacious contemplation in his voice, Loki corrected him, “Far from out,” and reached down to stroke himself once, despite a slight hitch of lingering sensitivity that made his whole body jerk a little as he returned to full hardness. “I wonder if you could come from sheer anticipation, if I decided to have your mouth once more, before taking you.”

It was the inventor’s turn to give a visible full-body shiver of appreciation. “Loki...”

“Another time, perhaps,” the trickster purred, as he tugged Tony to his feet by a firm grip on the mortal’s shoulder on one side, and upper-arm on the other, in a casual exertion of inhuman strength that left Tony scrambling a little mentally, which led to squirming physically, which led to squirming _against Loki_ and feeling the god’s cock rub up against his own, separated only by a layer of stubborn denim.

“F-fuck, _yeah_!” Tony bucked his hips involuntarily, with a desperate noise he barely recognized his own voice in. He hadn’t realized, without more friction in that key region, just how desperately aroused he had gotten.

“That would be the idea,” Loki deadpanned.

“Bastard, don’t stop that, don’t–” He cut off with an incoherent, ragged moan when the god’s hands dragged possessively down his shoulder-blades and then his spine, and then down further still to grab Tony’s buttocks and knead them just a little, the strength and force of it making muscles in both of the inventor’s thighs twitch, and this made his hips jerk against Loki’s further with each little tremor. “F-fuck, these jeans are killing me, please, Loki, take them off, and take me, already!”

The growlingly approving rumble Loki gave in response was almost as arousing as how swiftly his hands steered the inventor to whirl around and catch himself on the edge of the work-table, gripping it hard, then settling his palms atop the table instead, leaning his weight on them heavily as Loki’s clever hands deftly unbuttoned and unzipped and undressed him, freeing his cock into the cooler-feeling air around them and making Tony whimper. The noise shifted higher, into more breath than syllable, as he felt two long, lube-slick fingers trail between the cheeks of his ass.

“How long has it been, for you, Tony dear?” Loki purred, with his lips brushing the nape of the inventor’s neck as he pressed one fingertip into the inventor gently, experimentally, and gave a resonantly loud hum of appreciation at how he felt Tony’s body push back and arch into the contact with intent, and further facilitating his own body relaxing itself around the intrusion.

“F-fuck, not since right after c-college.” He had brought that boyfriend home in order to facilitate their break-up, knowing as he had done, just how much uproar Howard would respond with. Not against his son’s sexuality, so much as to bitch and moan about how they would have to handle PR if they wanted to pursue their relationship any further. That, sure enough, had sent that particular boyfriend packing, to Tony’s slight relief. It had spared him hurting the guy’s feelings himself.

Not that Tony could actually think of anything so coherent, just then. He was far too focused on keeping himself from tensing up as Loki pressed one finger into him, slow and intuitive. When a little gasp escaped Tony’s lips at the abrupt, firm pressure of that finger against his prostate, he could feel the satisfied curve of Loki’s smirking lips against his shoulder. Face flushing a bit red, the inventor arched his hips back, seeking more pressure and friction. “Loki, please,” he panted, then hissed as a second finger pressed into him abruptly, the slight discomfort making Tony’s hips jerk away, only for those fingers to then push in harder, and deeper, beginning to scissor within him, seeking to further open him up.

“Have you missed it, Tony? Being pounded into and overpowered in your pleasure?” Loki murmured, his voice going low and velvet.

The inventor moaned an inchoate syllable and tried to grind back against the trickster’s hand, only to wince a little at the addition of a third long finger into his ass. That stung, and he whimpered breathlessly around it, but jerked his hips back hard when he felt Loki start to retreat, making them both groan softly.

“Oh, I think you _have_.”

Tony chuckled softly, and shot back, “It’s hard to say I’ve missed what you hadn’t given me yet, Loki, but I think you have a slightly non-linear sense of time anyway, don’t you?” and met the god’s stare over his shoulder briefly.

Loki’s eyes had gone just a little wide with mixed awe and covetousness, and his fingers sped up their thrusts deliberately, focusing their friction on that one particularly effective spot, making the inventor lose the ability to think very clearly, followed by the ability to keep himself turned to stare at Loki and still maintain his balance. He leaned over the table a bit further as Loki did to, pressed close as he could without interfering with the fricative ministrations of his fingers as he spread them by slow increments. “I do,” Loki concurred, in a low growl. “And you are gaining one, and watching you conquer it has been a source of perpetual sexual frustration in my life for some time, Tony Stark. You wicked, brilliant mad fool.”

Tony emitted a breathless noise, then. “Your voice is such a turn on that sometimes I even like it more than mine,” he teased back, then emitted an undignified noise of mild outrage when the trickster’s hand suddenly retreated. Then he felt Loki drape over him more closely, nibbling up one side of his neck while pushing the head of his cock into the inventor’s ass, slow at first, until they both had their bearings, then only a little faster did he press in deeper.

Breathing ragged and shallowly, now, Tony let his head hang forward, his whole body’s movements now given an axis around which to writhe, restricted solely by the iron grip of a god’s hands fixed upon his hips. Those greedy hands and long arms pulled him back and closer, both smothering and invasive, pausing with an appreciative moan and a small grind once his hipbones pressed flush against Tony’s ass.

A low, breathy sound escaped the inventor’s lips, hissing between grit teeth, when Loki’s hands shifted their grip downward to the crease where Tony’s upper thighs and hips met, at just such an angle that it took the inventor’s balance from him and he tensed a little, but moaned when the trickster pulled him up and closer again, pushing again deeper, at an angle that the engineer wanted to dedicate the most beautiful formulae in the world to. He couldn’t shift his hips back so easily anymore, he realized, with Loki supporting his weight with inhuman strength alone, except where Tony counter-balanced himself against the table with both hands, and against Loki’s chest at his back.

He had to rely entirely on the god for his pleasure like this, and it took his breath away for a moment.

He got it back again when the warm-up period of fondling and grinding suddenly stilled, and the trickster began fucking Tony in slow, deep, thrusts, dragging each movement hard across the bundle of nerves within the inventor that rendered even mouthy verbosity the likes of Tony Stark’s utterly incoherent. He felt supported and weightless and wildly pleased, yet helpless, even as he still struggled to move in time, but couldn’t find sufficient coordination like this.

“L-loki, oh fuck, my god, ohhh fuuuck.” He had thought he might be in trouble before––but when the god of lies released his hold on his lover's left hip in favor of curling his fingers in Tony’s hair and dragging his head back with a sharp tug, bit his neck sharply, and growled the inventor’s name with vehement reverence––Tony knew he was really lost, to this one, and utterly ensnared. He also came so hard he almost blacked out, the very next time Loki moaned his name.

He wasn’t expecting Loki to then pick up the pace, and might have given a long, high cry of dismay that morphed into uncertain, slightly pained pleasure. He almost howled outright when a prickling flush of heat rolled over his scalp and down the rest of his body and he found himself hard again just as the trickster let go of his hair and used both hands to maneuver Tony effortlessly, so that he rested one knee up on the table, the other hanging down, not supporting his weight as much as the table and the god hissing sweet praises in his ear as he started to come, but didn’t slow.

The sounds of Loki continuing to fuck him, past the point of near-pain, and panting, “Tony,” in a suddenly-softened tone of acute desire, sent Tony right back over the edge himself, his whole body trembling.

They both paused for a moment, then, catching their breaths a little; the inventor became very acutely aware, after awhile, that the god wasn’t getting less hard. He might’ve whimpered. “Fuck, seriously?”

“You seemed fond enough earlier.” Another rush of magic over the inventor’s skin followed, but softer, like he was awaiting permission to do more than relieve some of his partner’s tiredness and soreness.

Tony squirmed. “Not complaining. Embarrassed that I require frequent recharging via mystic batteries.”

“Rest assured that I find the knowledge that I alone may do these things to you arousing enough to make ‘recharging’ you more than a bit of a turn-on,” Loki purred.

“Ohh, I _knew_ I liked you for good reasons.”

“And many unseemly ones.”

“Speaking of, why are you still not getting back to fucking meeeeyyyyessssfuck!”

Needless to say, neither the god of lies, nor the infamous Tony Stark, were seen in public anywhere for the next few days.

 

~~

 

In the weeks that followed, Clint Barton’s sole brave attempt to utter the phrase “daddy issues” anywhere within earshot of either Loki or Tony Stark resulted in him finding himself hanging upside-down, duct-taped to the door of his own room until Natasha found him and rescued him.

Needless to say, it has since then been added to the list of hot-button phrases forbidden from utterance Avengers Tower, on pain of week-long expulsion, joining the likes of: “I [any numerical value (optional)] dare you!” “How could it be worse?” and “Thor, is it true what they say about Loki and the horse?”

Of course, no one could instill such restrictions upon the common press corps.

The first time someone from a band of paparazzi descending upon Tony Stark and his new lover outside a cafe shouted the dread phrase like an accusation, the inventor had honestly expected a little bit of bloodshed.

Instead, Loki shot the man a worried look, then glanced skyward, then back to the paparazzi. “Beware what you imply about the relationships gods older than even Thor and I might have with their children. Not all of us are so restrained as my brother and I in expressions of divine wrath.” He smiled sweetly, and charmingly.

Two incidents of food poisoning amongst that same group of paparazzi spread rumors sufficient to persuade half of New York City, overnight, that making the wrong implications about Odin could bring down a plague upon oneself. The phenomenon made it into local news channels.

The Avengers stared in awe.

“You know,” Clint said slowly, “there’s days I’m really, really glad you’re on our side more often than not, these days, Loki.”

The other Avengers murmured agreement, save for Thor who laughed, and Tony, who smirked a bit as he felt the trickster’s fingers, entwined with his own, give a light squeeze.

“How did you manage it, again?” Bruce asked.

“Small magic. Storytelling,” Loki responded.

“Storytelling is hardly _small_ magic,” Thor rumbled. “Consider your relationship.”

“People are stories, after all,” Tony reminded him lightly, sounding amused.

“This story was small, and required little energy exertion,” the trickster tried to wave it off. “The very smallest, pettiest, and most selfishly frightening of lies have their own energies, requiring nothing more from me than to utter them at the right times.”

“Same goes for truths, though, when you feel like it,” the inventor mocked.

“He gets in even worse trouble when he _stops_ lying, Tony, _trust me_ ,” Thor intoned gravely; although there was a hint of amusement crinkling at the corners of his eyes.

“Usually because my lies were working to get you and I both out of trouble you got us into in the first place,” Loki accused calmly.

“As I recall, most of those ventures were your idea, to start.”

“Only after you spent weeks trying to cajole me into finding you a new quest.”

“Boys,” Natasha chided. “Save it for therapy time. Can we just savor the fact they called Dr. Stephen Strange for a consult on this whole story, and he had to give them the time of day in order to provide this phone interview?”

The others observed for a moment. The sorcerer supreme did sound so very, very exasperated, as he insisted there was no actual magic at work here: only paranoia and gossip. He sounded terribly world-weary.

Slowly, all of them began giggling, at the absurdities of the real and the imagined alike.


End file.
